‘I
don’t want it to look like EPA used our own social media accounts to
reach our support goal’ – EPA Director of Web Communications

(Washington,
DC) —Judicial Watch obtained900-pagesof
documents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which reveal
the agency’s use of the mass-sharingThunderclapsocial
media platform to covertly promote its policiesin
violationof federal law.

The documents show that EPA staffers, via the Thunderclap platform,
recruited outside groups to lobby in support of the Clean Water Rule or
“Waters of the United States.” Thunderclap shares member messages across
multiple Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts simultaneously.

Federal law prohibits agencies from engaging in propaganda, which is
defined as covert activity intended to influence the American public.
Federal law also prohibits agencies from using federal resources to
conduct grassroots lobbying to prod the American public to call on
Congress to act on pending legislation.

The EPA’s Director of Web Communications Jessica Orquina, in a
September 10, 2014, email, wrote to Karen Wirth, an EPA team leader in
the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, urgingthe
covert useof the Thunderclap technology. “I
don’t want it to look like EPA used our own social media accounts to
reach our support goal,” Orquina wrote to Wirth.

The Clean Water Rule, now in the process ofbeing
repealedby the Trump administration, was a
significant and legally controversial increase in federal authority over
streams and other small bodies of water.

A December 2015 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
concluded the EPA’s use of Thunderclap to promote the Clean Water Rule
“constitutes covert propaganda” and violatedfederal
law.

The records were obtained by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA)lawsuitfiled
on June 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the EPA failed to respond to a May 3 FOIA request (Judicial
Watch vs. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(No.
1:17-cv-01218)). Judicial Watch seeks:

All internal emails or other records
concerning project administration, management, or assignment of tasks
related to the EPA’s use of the Thunderclap social media platform.

On September 9, 2014, Travis Loop, the EPA’s director of communications
for water, initiated the lobbying effort inan
emailtoGary
Belan, senior director for the organization American Rivers, under
the subject line “RE: IMPORTANT: Join a Thunderclap for Clean Water”
that read:

EPA is planning to use a new social media
application called Thunderclap to provide a way for people to show their
support for clean water and the agency’s proposal to protect it. Here’s
how it works: you agree to let Thunderclap post a one-time message on
your social networks (Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr) on Monday, September
29 at 2:00 pm EDT. If 500 or more people sign up to participate, the
message will be posted on everyone’s walls and feeds at the same time.
But if fewer than 500 sign up, nothing happens. So, it is important to
both sign up and encourage others to do so.

In a September 10, 2014,emailfrom
Loop to Orquina, Loop asks “What’s the best way to get the other
agencies to sign up for the Thunderclap and promote on social media?
Interior, USGS, NOAA, etc. I was going to tweet at them to join the
Thunderclap, but thought maybe you had thoughts on that and maybe a more
direct line.” Orquina responds: “Why don’t I send a message to the
interagency social media listserv?”

In a September 15, 2014,email,
Loop seeks assistance on the Thunderclap effort from the American Public
Health Association (APHA). Loop writes to colleagues Brian Bond and
Micah Ragland: “Can you reach out to your contact at the American Public
Health Association and see if they can use their Twitter to support our
Thunderclap for clean water? Basically we would love if they could sign
up for their Twitter account to participate and then tweet to their
followers an encouragement to participate? If how to do this is unclear
I can talk to someone there. They have more than 440,000 followers so
this would be a nice bump.”

In a September 25, 2014,emailto
Jay Jensen of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ),
Loop noted of the Thunderclap Clean Water effort: “Right now we have 840
people who have signed up and so the message will be seen by 1.7 million
people. I’m trying to make this as big as possible, so anyone that can
sign up and encourage others to sign up is appreciated. I know you have
lots of connections all across the board that could make this even
bigger.”

“The Obama EPA knowingly did an end run around federal law to push
another Obama environmental power grab,” Judicial Watch President Tom
Fitton said. “These documents show how these Obama-era bureaucrats seem
to be more like social activists than public employees. Let’s hope
President Trump does some major housecleaning at the EPA.”